To be certain, the other liberal Democrats in the race have many positives. While we like Mark Smith’s strong working-class message and think he has room to grow as a future party leader, Smith has failed to catch on.

Senator Mike Stack has morphed into a born-again progressive on issues like marriage equality and abortion rights – issues he was recently quite bad on – and has also “evolved” on minimum wage and marijuana reform. That’s nice, but we’d rather have a nominee who’s always been a progressive, not a shapeshifter. Additionally, his presence on the ticket would only serve to undercut Tom Wolf’s message, what with the noises he has been making about his willingness to go rogue.

Recent polling shows that Koplinski is within striking distance of the two frontrunners for Lieutenant Governor, Mike Stack and Mark Critz. If liberal Democrats can unify behind Koplinski right now, he has a good shot at reaching the 20-25% vote he would likely need to win.

So on Tuesday, cast your ballot for the best progressive pick for Lieutenant Governor—Brad Koplinski.

I will be casting my ballot for Brad. He works harder than any candidate ever, period. He is an actual progressive and not one for political gain. He excites parts of the base that Wolf doesn’t (actual balance, many progressives are fairly lukewarm on Wolf). Let’s also face the fact that he organized an opposition that helped save Harrisburg $10s of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions by negotiating rather than bite the bullet and fully pay Wall Street. And his work on civil rights, lgbt rights and choice at a local level is fantastic. If he loses, Wolf would be super smart to bring him onboard to surrogate and work his butt off to beat Corbett. Especially if Critz is the running mate, Brad could help temper progressive concerns.